Dr. Phyllis Curtis-Tweed graduated from Emory University in 1993 with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership with a focus on Psychology. She then pursued postdoctoral training in psychology in the highly selective Clinical Research Training Program in Social Psychiatry at Harvard University. While at Harvard, she also obtained a minority investigator's award from the National Institute of Health to examine agency development in families in which parents experience depression.

Dr. Curtis-Tweed was an instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School for five years and taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Simmons College and in numerous grand rounds at the Harvard affiliated Hospitals. She is a referee for the Journal of Moral Education and an elected member of the Executive Board of the Association for Moral Education. She has published and presented at national and international conferences on issues in psychology, education, and most recently on the first year experience.

Dr. Curtis-Tweed joined the faculty at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York in 2001 as an Associate Professor and Director of the Freshman Year Program. At Medgar Evers College, Dr. Curtis-Tweed assisted in developing the Task Force and providing leadership to the college's work in Phase 1 of the Foundations of Excellence Project and served as campus liaison for Phase 2 of the project. These efforts have broadened the college's understanding of and commitment to programming to ensure student success beginning with the first college year and have brought Medgar Evers College national recognition as a College that Cares. Dr. Curtis-Tweed has provided university-wide leadership to special projects for the City University of New York including the evaluation of the University Skills Immersion Program and the development of a university-wide research project on student success. In 2005, she was appointed the Interim Associate Provost for Student Success, Assessment and Research.